Is 32 dB a reasonably quiet fan?

[hawkeye_wx]

Just wondering how much noise 32 dB is.

[Jeff Bolton]

that's not very loud at all. i fart louder than that :eek:

just kidding! its pretty damn quiet though compared to a lot of the fans that are out on the market these days.

jeff

[Intraveinous]

Yeah, depending on the fan size and airflow, that's pretty darn quiet... What fan is this 32db for? Basically though, your hard drive accessing will probably be louder than this fan..
peace
John

[hawkeye_wx]

The 32 dBA is for the Panaflo H1A 39.6 cfm 80mm fan. I'm leaning toward buying this fan for my Athlon XP with Alpha 8045 hs.

[nikhsub1]

I don't know how great that will cool your CPU so be careful. I would go for at least a 50cfm fan for the HSF.

[Jeff Bolton]

since you're having 80mm of area to suck air from, you want something that will sufficiently do the job. if noise is an issue for you then you can probably find something under 40 db which will kick out a pretty high amount of cfm's while not causing you too much of a headache.

jeff

[Intraveinous]

I disagree... The Panaflo fan on the 8045 will work splendidly for a low noise solution. You may not get the same kind of overclock out of it that a higher noise/ higher flow fan would produce, but you won't go crazy listening to it. I have a Sunon "ultra quiet" 80mm on my MC462 and it keeps an Athlon 1.4 at around 18-20degrees C over case ambient temp. It only flows like 24CFM too... I've been wanting to put a panaflow on there, but haven't gotten around to it...
Peace
John

[oc jason]

i have 2 of those panaflows in my case one on my HS with the 60 to 80 adapter. They are very quiet, at 32db at 38.5 cfm, i keeps my cpu at 43 load, 1330@1530 mhz. 1.775 vcore 41 c idle

[Wicked Klown]

If you want really good cooling and don't mind the noise go with a delta. I have the Swiftech MC462-BA with a 80mm 68c.f.m. Delta and my case temps and Cpu temps are the same 24c - 30c at idle (depends on the temp in the house) and 38C - 40C at full load.

[nil_esh]

I repost something I just wrote:

I just got some Panaflo Low Output (24cfm / 21dBA), very quiet don't even hear it except for the sound of air moving. Sunon's do me good too. I used the Sunon Super High Output (50.6cfm / 40.6 dBA) and it was loud and made this vibrating noise, but I used on the processor heatsink (for Athlon 1.4 system) and I could barely hear it over the other fans which were ~33 dBA and the 350watt power supply. Though for intake/outtake it was too loud. Sunon Low Output (36cfm / 32 dBA) good too, not too loud. I'm going to get 2 more Panaflo Low's for my Antec SX830, so I can have 5 of them and a really quiet case and plenty of airflow... its a K6-2 system, it should be quiet.

If you have a high-power processor, I say go high cfm (>= 50cfm) on your processor and quieter (e.g. 33 dBA) on your intakes and outtakes because you hear them more. With a nice big case (e.g. Antec SX830) with lots of intake/outtake fan slots the quiet fans add up.

[mcvan]

Go with the Panaflo. I'd even go with a larger, slower fan that makes less noise, like the Panaflo FBA09A12L1A, a 90mm fan that pushes 43 cfm at 27dBA.

Here's my low-noise solution:

A Swiftech 462 on a 1G T-bird at reduced core voltage of 1.55V. The fan is a 92mm that was the inner 2nd fan on the Enermax 350W PSU, running at 5V off a 4-pin connector. It is suspended over the Swiftech much like the fans for the Zalman flower heatsinks. Hot-glued securely to a PCI slot cover (off the case), which is decouple-mounted to the back panel with rubber grommets & a single screw/nut. No bad vibes, and fan is easily aimed.

There is enough airflow from the fan that I was able to remove the tiny but whiny fan off the mobo chip on the Abit KT7A-Raid with no ill effects.

CPU temps are 36-38C light use; 10C higher in heavy use.

The fan is completely inaudible with the PC case closed. Fan specs:

2000 RPM with 41.71 CFM @ 25 dBA
2500 RPM with 52.25 CFM @ 32.8 dBA (max speed at 12V)

My guess is that it's running at 1000-1200 rpm, and still blows 30 cfm or so, with noise under 20 dBA.

There is also one no-name 80mm front case fan decouple-mounted in a foam sponge (with a hole cut in the middle), then wedged in place. Runs silently at 5V. I just replaced my IBM 75GXP HD with new Seagate Barracuda IV -- they are completely silent with case closed. No hum, no whine, even seek noise is just barely audible.

The noisiest thing in my PC is the stock Enermax 80mm fan running at 1700 rpm, which I plan to replace with a 21dBA, 24cfm PANAFLO FBA08A12L.

Then, I think this PC will be completely inaudible under my desk, and it will be time to work on my backup...